Stochastic Modeling of SLR Observations and its Impact on the Parameter Estimation

Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) observations are provided by a global station network of the International Laser Ranging Service (ILRS). Since almost all SLR stations are unique in terms of utilized equipment, e.g., laser system, photo-detector or timing devices, their measurement performances may slightly differ. Furthermore, the tracked satellites have various properties, e.g., material composition (number and type of retro-reflectors or mantel material), diameter, area-to-mass ratio, altitude or inclination, which have an impact on the measurement precision and the requirements on the background force modeling. A reliable estimation of geodetic parameters solely based on SLR can only be performed by combining SLR observations to several spherical satellites provided by the entire ILRS network. To take the quality of each individual SLR measurement into account, several stochastic models, e.g., static or time-variable station- and/or satellitespecific weights, are introduced and their impact on the parameter estimation is studied.